In addition to his painting and drawing practice, Lukas is self-taught printmaker with a background in ‘zine publishing and non-traditional use of print media. For this exhibition he will present several new editions, a new artists’ book, diazotypes, sculptures, offset lithographs and unique works based in printmaking as parts of an ambitious installation at the gallery. Eschewing the concept of using print merely as a means of reproducing an already existing image, all of the work presented here is unique to it’s medium.

Alex Lukas’ highly detailed works on paper and intricate artists’ books examine a possible future of destruction and violence, coupled with rebirth and a quiet sense of optimism, alongside an examination of the contemporary landscape.

Last Saturday, here in SF's Mission district, Guerrero Gallery opened two new shows with Philly based Alex Lukas and SF based Richard Colman respectively. Colman's work occupied the project space while Lukas' work and foliage was presented in the main space. Worth getting to if you haven't already.

With this collection of works on paper Lukas continues his exploration of the fragility of our modern society, questioning concepts of our national mortality and examining universal ideas of isolation and rebirth through the framework of a re-imagined American ideal.

Philly based Bill McRight makes handmade weapons from found objects at flea markets and what he comes across in the streets. His show with AJ FosikCount Back from Nothing opens Friday July 16th @David B. Smith Gallery in Denver. Alex Lukas spent some time with Bill while he searched for materials at flea markets and hung around Bill's studio while he created the show and brings the photos to Fecal Face: BILL MCRIGHT'S STUDIO VISIT.

A short interview with this Philadelphia based artist whose show opens at White Walls here in SF on the 14th of March.

Alex does a lot... For the last 10 years or more he's been producing zines through Cantab Publishing. He creates wonderful mixed media works incorporating silkscreening processes... He's a somewhat recent graduate of Rhode Island School of Design. He's a member of Philly's artists collective Space 1026 which we've been fans of over the years. He's also Fecal Face's new Philadelphia corespondent, and the good news is that he's going to be showing some of his newer works here in San Francisco for his solo show "And Another Shall Rise To Take Her Place" which opens Saturday, March 14 at White Walls (3/14 - 4/3). We conducted this short interview through email to see what he has in store for the show.

Can you tell us about the title of your show? "And Another Shall Rise To Take Her Place".

With "And Another Shall To Take Her Place", I don't know, I was trying to title the show something that eludes to some destruction, in that whatever came before has fallen, but also speaks to an idea of an eventual renewal and rebirth. It is a sentiment that implies both defeat and optimism at once, and that idea is something I am interested in.

Your work focuses on what looks like destroyed and flooded urban settings. If you had to describe your work to someone who's never seen it, what would you say?

I have taken to calling them "disaster drawings", but I guess that is just a simple way for me to distinguish this body of work from other things I make. I'm not quite sure how I'd describe them beyond that, other than I hope they are kind of quite drawings.

I notice a lot of your work incorporates silkscreen. How do you normally use it in your work? Which parts are silk-screened?

I think using a silkscreen really allows you to achieve a look that you just can't get with paint and a brush. I really like the way, with silk screening, you can overlap transparent colors to really build up a texture while keeping the surface flat. I can't make it look that way with any other method. And I like doing it.

There are two major places I use silkscreen in my work. First, a lot of the grass fields that appears in my drawings are silk-screened. I try to be real scientific about the way the transparent inks layer. There are so many variables from what mesh count you use, to what brand of ink you have, to how you pull the squeegee, you need to be scientific about it. My grass pattern starts with a hand painted positive I use to create the screen, from there I made a whole bunch of test patterns to see what different color combinations look like, and by keeping track of which color comes goes over what and which ink I use, I am able to control how the grass will look.

I also use silk screening to create the flooded cityscapes. They start as book pages, then I mask out the buildings that I want to appear above the waterline. Over the whole page I do a "rainbow roll" (I think split pallet is the technical term) of ink through an open screen to get the flat transparency at the bottom that fades into an opaque color at the top. Then I am able to paint in reflections and other details. Over that I do anywhere from two to five more pulls of ink through various screens to create the waves before I remove the masking that I put down at the beginning.

I think the re is a mis-conception that somehow incorporating printmaking into the process is a time-saver. It really isn't, I mean, while the time you spend actually sitting in front of each piece might be slightly shorter, the preparation, planning and experimentation easily makes any time difference negligible, but the benefits still outweigh the downsides. I need to use these methods to make the images I want.

Cantab Publishing is a small 'zine publishing company I have been running for about eight years now. I have always been interested in printed material as a means of distributing ideas, and Cantab is just the name under which I try to do that. I think that the form of a book is really a great way to share ideas and visions; the combination of text and image in a format with a beginning, a middle and an end can be really compelling. Having said that, I don't really have a set plan for Cantab, or a mission statement (or a business plan for that matter), other than I like making books and this is my venue to do that. Xeroxing and silk screening images and giving them to friends has been something I have enjoyed for a long time. I think I was in like 6th grade when I made my first Xeroxed comic to give to kids in class. I have a bunch of zines almost ready to come out, they have been like 90% done for months, and hopefully they will actually be finished by the end of spring. That is really my next focus once White Walls is up.

For those who don't know, Space 1026 is an 11-year old artists collective in Center-city Philadelphia. It was started by a bunch of RISD grads and other kids from Philly living in Providence in the late 90's. It was loosely modeled after a space up there called Fort Thunder. 1026 was founded by kids who wanted to have a similar place to make work and have shows in Philadelphia.

I have been there for about a year and a half. About 30 of us share the top two floors of 1026 Arch street, where have studios along with a print shop, a small retail store and a collective run art gallery. It is non-profit in the sense that we don't make any money, but we are not a 501(c) or anything as organized as that. It is really just a nice way to work around other like-minded people, not to mention it makes rent cheaper. The gallery space we run is really a great opportunity to show good art in Philadelphia without the constraints of trying to run a commercial gallery. We invite artists from around the country (and sometimes world) to show in our gallery on a monthly basis. We look at proposals a few times a year and decide on what we show as a group. We are excited to be able to show people with very little experience one month while the next we might have people like Andrew Schoultz or Monica Canilao showing with us. Over the past ten years, we have shown Ed Templeton, the Fort Thunder kids, Paper Rad, Matt Leines, Steve Powers, Daniel Johnson, Alex DeCorte, Shepard Fairey and so many others.

Right now we have a really exciting show featuring Michelle Blade from San Francisco (who I am sure Fecal Face fans are familiar with), Jeanette Mundt, Suzannah Sinclair and Erika Somogyi, who are all living and working in Brooklyn. We also have Bill Daniels, Matthew Palladino and Derek Weisberg coming in the next few months; I know those three all have strong ties to the Bay Area. It seems like Phila and SF have a nice back and forth these days.

Not really a question, but wanted to say we're happy you're the new Fecal Face Philadelphia correspondent. Nice to get more Philly perspective up on the site.

I've only been living here a year and a half or so, but I really like this city, and there is a whole lot going on here, so I'm glad to have the opportunity to share.

What were your experiences at R.I.S.D.? Would you recommend it to someone considering going there?

I think art school is really about who you end up there with and what you focus on, one of those things you can control, the other you can't. I was lucky to end up around a really strong, motivated group of kids, which was lucky, and Providence, as a city, was a really interesting, good place to be at the time (I'm sure it still is). R.I.S.D. as a whole was great, but in retrospect, I think I should have majored in Printmaking.

What's the daily routine you're in these days?

I'm trying to get up earlier than I have in the past, bike to 1026, check e-mail and ship Cantab orders. Then I usually do some printmaking and finally work on drawings starting into the afternoon and into the evening, then go home and put on a movie and work on masking the flooded city pieces (like I described before) until I'm ready to go to sleep. But there is really a lot of flexibility to that schedule, some days it feels like I don't get much done, but that's okay every now and then. The past few weeks have been busy getting ready for White Walls, trying to get the work photographed and figuring out frames, then this week, after the work was shipped, I have been focusing on getting the 1026 gallery ready for the next show which opens on Friday the 6th.

I just got a copy of Springsteen Live at the Hammersmith Odeon in London from 1975. I have also been getting a big kick out of watching old videos where the artists are just clearly out of their mind on drugs. My two favorites are Van Morison singing Caravan from Scorsese' The Last Waltz and Rod Stewart singing You Wear it Well in these crazy yellow tights. He falls down when he tries to curtsy and then walks on and off stage a few times, but it is still an amazing song. Other than that, it is just the usual diet of classic rock radio peppered with a little Talking Heads binge every now and then.

All of your work is untitled (or at least on your site). What's that about?

I'm bad with titles, which is why most of my work is untitled. There is a certain poetry that needs to goes into titling stuff, and I'm no poet. Having said that, I really enjoy the ambiguity that can come with an untitled piece.

I'm not sure how many people are lucky enough to have The San Francisco Giants 3 World Series trophies put on display at their work for the company's employees to enjoy during their lunch break, but that's what happened the other day at Deluxe. So great.

When works of art become commodities and nothing else, when every endeavor becomes “creative” and everybody “a creative,” then art sinks back to craft and artists back to artisans—a word that, in its adjectival form, at least, is newly popular again. Artisanal pickles, artisanal poems: what’s the difference, after all? So “art” itself may disappear: art as Art, that old high thing. Which—unless, like me, you think we need a vessel for our inner life—is nothing much to mourn.

Hard-working artisan, solitary genius, credentialed professional—the image of the artist has changed radically over the centuries. What if the latest model to emerge means the end of art as we have known it? --continue reading

"[Satire] is important because it brings out the flaws we all have and throws them up on the screen of another person," said Turner. “How they react sort of shows how important that really is.” Later, he added, "Charlie took a hit for everybody." -read on

NYC --- A new graffiti abatement program put forth by the police commissioner has beat cops carrying cans of spray paint to fill in and cover graffiti artists work in an effort to clean up the city --> Many cops are thinking it's a waste of resources, but we're waiting to see someone make a project of it. Maybe instructions for the cops on where to fill-in?

The NYPD is arming its cops with cans of spray paint and giving them art-class-style lessons to tackle the scourge of urban graffiti, The Post has learned.

Shootings are on the rise across the city, but the directive from Police Headquarters is to hunt down street art and cover it with black, red and white spray paint, sources said... READ ON

SAN FRANCISCO --- The Headlands Center for the Arts is preparing for their largest fundraiser of the year set to go down on June 4th at SOMArts here in the city. Art auction, food, drinks, live music, etc and all for helping to support a great institution up in the Marin Headlands. ~details

ABOUT HEADLANDSHeadlands Center for the Arts provides an unparalleled environment for the creative process and the development of new work and ideas. Through a range of programs for artists and the public, we offer opportunities for reflection, dialogue, and exchange that build understanding and appreciation for the role of art in society.

We haven't been featuring many interviews as of late. Let's change that up as we check in with a few local San Francisco artists like Kevin Earl Taylor here whom we studio visited back in 2009 (PHOTOS & VIDEO). It's been awhile, Kevin...

If you like guns and boobs, head on over to the Shooting Gallery; just don't expect the work to be all cheap ploys and hot chicks. With Make Stuff by Peter Gronquist (Portland) in the main space and Morgan Slade's Snake in the Eagle's Shadow in the project space, there is plenty spectacle to be had, but if you look just beyond it, you might actually get something out of the shows.

Fifty24SF opened Street Anatomy, a new solo show by Austrian artist Nychos a week ago last Friday night. He's been steadily filling our city with murals over the last year, with one downtown on Geary St. last summer, and new ones both in the Haight and in Oakland within the last few weeks, but it was really great to see his work up close and in such detail.

Congrats on our buddies at Needles and Pens on being open and rad for 11 years now. Mission Local did this little short video featuring Breezy giving a little heads up on what Needles and Pens is all about.

Matt Wagner recently emailed over some photos from The Hellion Gallery in Tokyo, who recently put together a show with AJ Fosik (Portland) called Beast From a Foreign Land. The gallery gave twelve of Fosik's sculptures to twelve Japanese artists (including Hiro Kurata who is currently showing in our group show Salt the Skies) to paint, burn, or build upon.

Backwoods Gallery in Melbourne played host to a huge group exhibition a couple of weeks back, with "Gold Blood, Magic Weirdos" Curated by Melbourne artist Sean Morris. Gold Blood brought together 25 talented painters, illustrators and comic artists from Australia, the US, Singapore, England, France and Spain - and marked the end of the Magic Weirdos trilogy, following shows in Perth in 2012 and London in 2013.

San Francisco based Fecal Pal Jeremy Fish opened his latest solo show Hunting Trophies at LA's Mark Moore Gallery last week to massive crowds and cabin walls lined with imagery pertaining to modern conquest and obsession.

Well, John Felix Arnold III is at it again. This time, he and Carolyn LeBourgios packed an entire show into the back of a Prius and drove across the country to install it at Superchief Gallery in NYC. I met with him last week as he told me about the trip over delicious burritos at Taqueria Cancun (which is right across the street from FFDG and serves what I think is the best burrito in the city) as the self proclaimed "Only overweight artist in the game" spilled all the details.

Ever Gold opened a new solo show by NYC based Henry Gunderson a couple Saturday nights ago and it was literally packed. So packed I couldn't actually see most of the art - but a big crowd doesn't seem like a problem. I got a good laugh at what I would call the 'cock climbing wall' as it was one of the few pieces I could see over the crowd. I haven't gotten a chance to go back and check it all out again, but I'm definitely going to as the paintings that I could get a peek at were really high quality and intruiguing. You should do the same.

The paintings in the show are each influenced by a musician, ranging from Freddy Mercury, to Madonna, to A Tribe Called Quest and they are so stylistically consistent with each musician's persona that they read as a cohesive body of work with incredible variation. If you told me they were each painted by a different person, I would not hesitate to believe you and it's really great to see a solo show with so much variety. The show is fun, poppy, very well done, and absolutely worth a look and maybe even a listen.

With rising rent in SF and knowing mostly other young artists without capitol, I desired a way to live rent free, have a space to do my craft, and get to see more of the world. Inspired by the many historical artists who have longed similar longings I discovered the beauty of artist residencies. Lilo runs Adhoc Collective in Vienna which not only has a fully equipped artists creative studio, but an indoor halfpipe, and private artist quarters. It was like a modern day castle or skate cathedral. It exists in almost a utopic state, totally free to those that apply and come with a real passion for both art and skateboarding

I just wanted to share with you a piece I recently finished which took me 4 years to complete. Titled "How To Lose Yourself Completely (The September Issue)", it consists of a copy of the September 2007 issue of Vogue magazine (the issue they made the documentary about) with all faces masked with a sharpie, and everything else entirely whited out. 840 pages of fun. -Bryan Schnelle

Jeremy Fish opens Hunting Trophies tonight, Saturday April 5th, at the Los Angeles based Mark Moore Gallery. The show features new work from Fish inside the "hunting lodge" where viewers climb inside the head of the hunter and explore the history of all the animals he's killed.

Beautiful piece entitled "The Albatross and the Shipping Container", Ink on Paper, Mounted to Panel, 47" Diameter, by San Francisco based Martin Machado now on display at FFDG. Stop in Saturday (1-6pm) to view the group show "Salt the Skies" now running through April 19th. 2277 Mission St. at 19th.

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to quit my job, move out of my house, leave everything and travel again. So on August 21, 2013 I pushed a canoe packed full of gear into the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Lake Itasca, Minnesota, along with four of my best friends. Exactly 100 days later, I arrived at a marina near the Gulf of Mexico in a sailboat.

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